Updates to the EUSBSR Action Plan

The Action Plan of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region has been updated in March 2017.

Apart from a number of technical updates and corrections, main changes on substance concern a revised Policy Area Transport chapter and the inclusion of a new action on the integration of refugees in Policy Area Education.

In the governance chapter there is also a new section on the procedure to follow in the case of change of thematic coordinators.

Engaging Norwegian actors in the EUSBSR framework – seminar in Oslo on 27 April

“Let´s Communicate!” –project organizes a seminar in Oslo on 27 April 2017. The focus lies especially in creating growth and jobs in the fields of culture, cultural heritage and creative industries.

The topic of the seminar is “Increased prosperity through culture”. This narrows down to two main objectives. First to look at the relationships between different types of organizations, networks and platforms and also the financial programs in the Baltic Sea region and the EUSBSR. The second main objective is to inform and discuss Norwegian actors possibilities for more active engagement and participation in the arenas and in concrete project activities in the Baltic Sea region.

Joint meeting of Transport Coordinators of the EU Macro-regional Strategies

A joint meeting of transport issues' Coordinators of the four EU Macro-regional Strategies was organised by INTERACT Programme in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 14-15 March.

The meeting was aiming at exchanging implementation know-how, practices and experiences in among the Coordinators. It provided an opportunity for an open and lively dialogue on the daily management and coordination governance questions. Issues such as governance structures, involvement on multi-level actors, alignment of funding and communications were discussed.

Within the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region Policy Area (PA) Transport is responsible for the transport issues. PA Transport is coordinated by Sweden and Lithuania (see the contact information here) and currently there are four Flagships demonstarting the implementation of the EUSBSR in the field of transport issues:

A joint paper from nine regions covering different macro-regional strategies on how to improve embedding of the EU macro-regional strategies into the EU regulatory framework post 2020 was prepared under the initiative of Bavaria, current presidency of the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region.

In the position paper it is stated that a better embedding of Macro-regional Strategies (MRS) into EU policies post 2020 would improve the impact of MRS as a political framework. Operational programmes should thus be encouraged to better support Macro-regional projects.

Summary reports from 7th Strategy Forum's political seminars available

Almost 30 summary reports from the political seminars of the 7th EUSBSR Strategy Forum organised in Stockholm in November 2016 are now available on the event website alongside other materials and reports from the Forum.

The seminar reports have been written by Swedish Institute alumni and members of SI Network for Future Global Leaders. The reports are based on alumni's personal impressions and are views and observations of the individual writers.

Three new EUSBSR Flagships approved

The list of ongoing Flagships of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region is updated. Three new Flagships were approved by the National Coordinators in February 2017.

One of the newly approved Flagships is "Winter Navigation Motorways of the Sea II" (WINMOS II), which aims to improve the efficiency, safety and environmental performance of winter navigation in the Baltic Sea. WINMOS II is a Flagship under Policy Area Safe.

Flagship "Developing an evaluation model to asses prevention measures" (EVAPREM) aims to improve assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of prevention measures implemented by rescue services in the Baltic Sea region. EVAPREM is a Flagship under Policy Area Secure.

Thirdly, "iWater - Improving urban planning by developming integrated and multifunctional storm water management in the Central Baltic cities" was approved as a Flaghsip under Horizontal Action Climate. iWater develops guidelines and tools for Integrated Storm Water Management (ISWM) and introduces good storm water management practices into urban planning processes.

Flagships are projects and processes that demonstrate successful implementation of the EU Strategy of the Baltic Sea Region.